Rain we want to clap and we want to cry all at the same time after watching Somebody's Daughter. Thank you for making that powerful, powerful movie. I don't even know where to start now. There was another elected official that was kind enough to attend. And I want to recognize councilmember Michael Dallas for the Salt River Pima Indian Community. Councilmember still here--thank you for attending. Thank you for being here. There's one person who I want to recognize who is not here she was out--she's out of town. But in our own state legislature, Jennifer Jermaine they represent generally remain was really the the leader that got our taskforce done, and I know they're doing some good work. And I think we're going to be hearing about that on the panel. But I wanted to recognize my good friend and our friend, Jennifer Jermaine. Now we'll have a panel discussion to the panelists that I talked about earlier. If you'd come forward delegate Amber Crotty from the Navajo Nation. Lieutenant Governor Monica Antone Gila River Indian Community. Dr. Kate Fox, who leads MMI W research at Arizona State University. Valaura. Good to see Valarua Imus-Nahsonhoya, who is a victim rights specialist who was kind enough to stay afterwards if anybody saw something that impacted them that they would like to talk to a counselor about and of course, rain are filmmakers. So thank you. Rain. Do we have enough? Okay. And we'll jump right in. I know that the we didn't want to keep you here to too long tonight. It is the holiday season. So we'll jump right into the questions. And I do have some from the audience as well. Let me start right with rain. Rain. Thank you for being here sharing this powerful movie, it's not the first documentary you have made. There's also another powerful documentary that you can see online as well called Say Her Name, Rain and making these powerful raw documentaries. What story has most stuck with you and made you look at this terrible situation in a different and more personal way?
Well, I take all of it personally. Think that if we don't take it personally, we don't recognize that this is an existential threat to tribal people, not just in this state, not just in the United States, not just in Canada. But as President. And as I said earlier worldwide, when our life givers are being taken, when future grandmas are being taken, then we better take it personally. And you know, relative to accounts that you saw in the film, you will have seen Kimberly Loring, heavy runner. And on December 12, of 2018, Kimberly went to the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to testify. And, you know, I have had some interaction with some of the senators on that committee. And, you know, there's a lot of earnest expressions and how terrible everything is, and we really need to do something. Well, this is we just passed the third anniversary of that Senate hearing. Do you know what's happened with her sister's case? Absolutely nothing. The chairman of the tribe, Chairman Tim Davis, who you saw in the film, Chairman Davis wrote a letter to Attorney General garland to Secretary Harland to the Senate committee of Indian Affairs Chairman Brian Schatz, and to FBI director Christopher ray that was in October of this year, you know, how many responses he's received? Zero. He was calling for an investigation like he did into the movie into what was happening with Ashley's case. And he was also calling for you know, my film say her name is about what's called the epicenter of the MMI WG tragedy Bighorn County in Montana. And the purpose of that film is to get a federal investigation from the Department of Justice into what is happening in that county because that would send a message to every other big con county that exists in the United States and Tim hasn't had a response from anybody. And so I think you got to be, you know, you have to take that personally. And, Congressman, I really appreciate what you did. In the Judiciary Committee hearing when you questioned Attorney General garland about what it was that the DOJ was doing in respect to this, and his response to you, and I paraphrase was just because it looks like I'm not doing anything, don't take it that I'm not doing anything. Where I come from, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, I'm going to consider that it's a duck until as evidence to the contrary. And, you know, I just think that it's totally unacceptable. That that's the case. And I'm going to share with you, I just got this text. This text is from Ashley's mom, Loxy, Lauren, who you saw in the film, and she writes to me one second. She said, I feel there will be more awareness to the problem. You have done good work, and I am blessed to know you. I know many other mothers feel the same way. And you are the voice for all of us. Now, what I would say about that, is that if you have mothers of victims, who think that a dude who makes films is their best hope, then that's a big problem. And we should all take it personally.
Thank you, Lieutenant Governor Antone. You remember the committee that I mentioned earlier that was formed by the HB 2570. At the State Legislature led by Representative Jennifer Jermaine. It established a 21 member study committee to address in the State of Arizona, the MMIW. Crisis. Can we talk about that an update on that work? Or how's it going from your perspective and what more we need to do?
Thank you and good sciatic to everyone here. Good to see everybody involved in to hear the film. And very, I'm still shaken by what I saw there. It just sitting up here gives you the goosebumps on what we go through. But with respect to the the MMIW, state committee study committee and all of the beautiful women that are up here that were fighting and the the film spoke about grassroots individuals, and we did it did start with many grassroots women that came together from all sections of this southwest region. And those southwest grassroots that lost daughters little as eight years old and so forth, that the I became involved with their they their hearts, the day that we passed House Bill 2570. Everybody came together in lockdown bowls. And there was a dry tear in that room as Governor Ducey signed that bill for us. And it's something as as a fighting warrior women that I always want to think. But one thing I before I share a little bit about the research committee is that I was thinking about this that we were all on this ladder climbing it and it was the the senators here Jennifer Germaine, Peshlakit, Sally, and all those that held us together. And then to Congressmen Staton holding the next ladder up for us, I just think that you're going to pull us up forward. And I'm just really proud of you for what you're doing for Indian country. But moving to the question, the research that we did and what we've been doing with House Bill study, right, what we what we found out that it showed that there is major confusion over jurisdiction. There's lack of resources for victim advocates and failure to provide a culturally competent training, which will create and has created cracks that indigenous women and girls fall through. And I might add that the report uncovered a correlation of as the film stated, the issues with substance abuse, domestic violence and sex trafficking, which are all contributing factors as we heard from the film. So what we've been working on and looking at in ASU not to steal the thunder Miss Fox and they're finding says just recently, the competence station for victims needs to really be addressed. But my think I can speak to your next question. On that note. Thank you, Congressman.
Thank you very much, Lieutenant Governor, that does lead us to Dr. Fox, maybe talk a little bit some of the work you're doing at ASU and the research. And also, in the bill, the nest, the necessity for a state specific study, many of the issues addressed in the movie seemed like they might be limited to Montana in that part of the country. But actually, they're universal. They apply to states like Arizona, but you're also looking at state specific information. For the challenges here, maybe talk a little bit about that.
Thank you so much. And thank you for the opportunity to be here and for hosting this important, important work, and your film, which was beautiful and powerful. And especially, I want to take stock for a moment and recognize you for doing so at this time of year. As you all know, the holiday season is very stressful for a lot of people. I think that we forget that. And in the film you talked about or you had folks talking about domestic violence, and I just want to raise awareness that that is something that does increase this time of year. So I think this is a perfect time to to have this event. And I also to get back to your question. Yes. So although Arizona wasn't necessarily featured in this documentary in this work, this is very much happening in Arizona, we've we've looked at that we've documented that as part of HB 2570. As you mentioned, the the legislation, Arizona was the third state in the nation to pass legislation to call awareness and to ultimately end MMI WG. And so this is something as led by, as you mentioned, Representative Jennifer Germain, and others, many of whom are on the stage here. That that highlights this is something that's happening in Arizona, this is something that's happening at very high rates in Arizona. The statistics that were shown in the film resonate also within our state, this is increasing. This is one of the findings that we found in our study, this is increasing, and has been increasing over the past 30 years. 30 years is all we have data from but I do acknowledge that this has been going on since since the beginning of colonization. So at least from the past 30 years, what we can tell is this is increasing steadily. And I fully expect that this will continue to increase, especially with COVID as COVID compounds. Many of the issues that were highlighted in this in this beautiful documentary. Some of the other findings that we found were This is happening all over the state of Arizona, it's not concentrated only on tribal land, it's not concentrated only off tribal land. This is happening in rural and urban areas. This is happening among men and women. This is happening among elders and infants and everywhere in between those that we found looking at our 30 years of data who were at highest risk, were in their 20s and 30s. Those that were highlighted in the film those young women at very high risk of experiencing MMI WG. And so I just want to, again, thank you for the opportunity to be here and to share. I'm happy to share more about our findings as we continue or answer any further questions on it. So thank you, thank
you very much for that very obviously, it's the fact that so many victims of crimes are not properly listed on the police reports are law enforcement reports as a native person, instead other has made tracking this virtually impossible to have accurate information, accurate numbers and that is improving but still we have a long way to go. Delegate Claudia was going to ask you this question. This movie does such a wonderful job of raising awareness, not just among elected officials and community leaders but among a broader audience about this tragedy, but what else can we do? What else Shouldn't we be doing? Do you think to raise awareness to help bring change?
Yet the Thank you, Congressman, for my relatives, [unknown]
So I come from Sheep Springs Navajo Nation, Four Corners. I sit on the Navajo Nation Council, and I'm the chair of the sexual assault prevention subcommittee and in 2016 the Navajo Nation Council created this subcommittee, because we lost our our little girl, Ashley and Mike. And so I wear this scarf. Because when we thought of Ashley, and when she was taken violently from us, abducted and ultimately found, assaulted, and brutalized, we found out that her colors, her favorite colors were yellow. And then some of her family said, No, it's red, or it's purple. And I thought as a mother and being privileged to see my children grow, we know that they change throughout life. And so the scarf embodies all of those favorite colors that Ashlyn held feet to her. And as a Navajo woman, I always think of my grandma who gave me safety. And all of this stuff we talked about in the movie, who do you go to? And for me, and for many others, it was my grandma. And so this scarf in what she wore, represents that safety hood. And so when the question is asked, what more can we do for awareness? First, all of us to give ourselves that moment to reground ourselves in what this movie, and this story invoked. And so I want to share here because it's the survivors, and it's the families. So who in the room is here as a survivor, and as a family that is dealing with the challenge of a missing relative? I see you, I recognize you. We pray for your relative to come back home, we pray for them to have the strength to continue to endure, and pray for your family to know that their life mattered, and that we're here on this panel to say that we will do everything that we can to bring them back. And so as we do that, and that's what we collectively say so in only not bringing awareness, but understanding how many people this has impacted. And has my yard here had just stayed if the family's relying on a filmmaker to advocate, then what can we do in our own capacity? What can we do with social media? What can we do with our own media to tell the story? How can we in our professional capacity help, and to help the families continue to search to advocate and when we talk about prevention and trafficking? Let me tell you, I was there with Kimberly. When Senator Tester was providing these clips back in 2018, we traveled to DC takes us all day to travel there. The FBI walked out on us, they presented and if you see the clips before the FBI walked out, now remember the head of criminal investigators said there's enough agents in Indian Country. Missing Persons is not an issue. And they walked out. They walked out on Kimberley. They walked out on all our relatives on why we went there to testify. And let me tell you, Navajo Nation, Indian country does not have enough agents. Navajo Nation Indian country does not have the jurisdiction or the resources that they need. And in 2018, when they felt that the missing Indigenous women did not matter. That's how they felt and continue to fill about us. Because nothing has changed in the last three years. Nothing has changed. We pass savannahs Act passed, not invisible, no more act, but that not provide more resources for training on the field. Right now the Office of Victims of Crime does not. Because if you're over 18, and you're missing, that's not a criminal act. So the families are not supportive. There's not more resources out for training to enter go look for for someone. So if you're a family member, that's out of pocket. You're having conversations about how do you get cadaver dogs to your community, you're having conversations about who's going to raise money. So next week, we can continue to search. You have to raise money and say, now we're dealing with cartel and drug dealers that are shooting at us while we're trying to search for our loved one.
So it's beyond awareness. We need action. We need our federal partners, our state partners, our tribal partners, to do everything in their power. When when they asked how much and what is the value of a life that's what we mean. That's what we mean what what is it going to take to bring that relative back home So we have serial killers, who now are confessing to killing? Tanya Begay, added to Hatchie? What do I tell her children? What do I tell her son and her daughter? What do we tell Ariel, the gays mother, who died of a broken heart looking for her daughter? What do we tell Safina who's out there looking for Ellamy elder missing in the middle of the night. And from that, representative, Congressman, if if we could ask, we need help. And you have the power with your colleagues to bring in that help. We've seen it before we've seen FBI come before and saturate Indian country and help us if we have to deal with cartel gang activity. And our children, our babies, our babies, they need to know that they're loved. They need to know when a trafficker contacts the bear so precious, that they are not going to fall victim to that person. Because as easy as 25 seconds, a trafficker can groom and snatch our child via the phone. That's how quick they look into their eyes. And they'll say you're beautiful. And if you say, Oh, really, they'll bring you in. But if you say, won't be talking to me, respect me, they walk away. And that's how they are targeting our children. That's how they are targeting our people. This is very sophisticated. And so I think that's where we need to move beyond action. And all of you in the room here. You cannot no longer say you do not know. And that's why I appreciate rain. We've been on different presentations. And I think the policy stuff, we need to keep advocating, and keep being loud. And all of us to pray for your relatives to come back home, to pray to understand what happened, and that they deserve to be with their family. They deserve to be reunited. And we don't, if you notice everyone in this picture, how to tell the story of why their daughter deserves attention. We should be looking for all of our relatives because they're our relatives. We shouldn't have to put their resume out there and why they're valuable, we should just be looking for them to return back home. Because that's our duty. That's our duty to all of our relatives. So thank you very much. And thank you, Congressman, for leading this way. We're going to keep you accountable to the families are not quiet. The families are not quiet.
Thank you, but I don't know how to so powerful and their daughters, their sisters or mothers, and they are our fellow American citizens that are missing. Valaura, so much of the discussion in the movie and so far with our panel has discussed the role of law enforcement agencies and the coordination issue this vexing and frustrating issue of lack of coordination at the tribal level, local level, county level, state level, federal level as well. You've even organized search parties to help find missing Native American women. What does law enforcement need to learn better to better understand these crimes in Indian Country?
Okay, [unknown] Good evening. Thank you all for being here with us today. But before we go on, everybody, just take a deep breath. I know this has been heavy. I need that breath.
I hear my voice shaky and I'm sure you all are feeling the same emotions as well. I want to back up a little bit, Congressman in the study that we did, you know, I work very closely with Representative Jermaine in the study as the study coordinator with the state working very closely with Dr. Fox and ASU and also Lacroix and Milligan. Because of the pandemic, you know, we were hoping to go out to each reservation, 22 tribes in Arizona, to hear from our families and survivors to learn and understand actually what is happening around missing and murdered and their experience This, it didn't happen that way for us. We had 27 days to to hear from our families, I took that big step in being the interview with our families and our survivors. And it was over zoom. That was the only way we could do it was zoom and through Facebook Live. And that was how we were interviewing our families and survivors. In those 27 days, this one interview lasted anywhere from three, three to six hours. Not only was I interviewing these families and survivors, I was also debriefing them and their family with what they had shared with me. And I felt that was very important. But other these in the out of these interviews, we also learned that we had someone actually read it to you, because so much information here. We had five females that were murdered. We males that were murdered, five that were missing 10 that were missing and murdered. And six survivors of missing. We had two males that were murdered, one that was missing five that was missing and murdered. And we also listened to stories of our transgenders, who were missing, and eventually found. out of 66 of the eight survivors that were interviewed, they shared that they were being trafficked, and that they were or they were being groomed.
And in response to the question, the our consulting firm homeland state consulting, my background is in victim services. I worked at the tribal level, and also the federal level providing services to crime victims, I noticed that there was a gap in services of many of our families not receiving services due to funding guidelines. Some of them are laws in our tribes, and it was mostly our adult missing persons that were not receiving the services. We work very hard in creating this missing persons in trafficking team with different collaborators. As the sex trafficking team did a lot of our training our survivors of trafficking trained us how to be able to help these survivors and getting them out of the life. We partner with law enforcement agencies, we've partnered with survivors and families to identify how could we help and it's been a task. My husband and I both have full time jobs. Our volunteers have jobs, but they take the time to come out and help. What I'm finding in, in our, in Indian country, we've gone nationwide, we've been to Montana, Minnesota, California, Washington, and here in New Mexico, helping families. And what we're doing is we're trying to do our best to get law enforcement to respond to these families. They're we're doing our best to have them collaborate and be present. We're training our community volunteers of how to do effective search, whether it's grid search, or whatever we're doing out there in the in the fields.
And, you know, it's been very challenging. I tell you, it's been very challenging working with law enforcement. The excuses that I see and I call these excuses as our jurisdictional excuses. We're tribal in. We're federal, and I understand and I get it. We have tribal police BIA police, we have FBI, but they're shoving this to each other. This is not my case. This is a major crime. This goes to BIA. This goes to federal I mean, FBI. No, this is tribal jurisdiction enough to go back here. Our families are hearing this, our families are hearing these statements. And, you know, I'm telling my husband, get them out of here. I can't, you know, work I'm gonna lose our families in having an ability to be able to function because they're already feeling a loss. They have emotional and mental inefficiencies to be able to even handle a search and see these volunteers out there trying to help. And I'm Hopi and I see our community coming together. I've been in New Mexico, we've been in California and tribal in tribal nations. And it's the community and we talked about grassroots, grassroots are doing this work. We are. And I'm seeing the same experiences that I saw when VA was started. It was a grassroots. And to fix this, I always ask myself, how do we fix this? You know, and unfortunately, we're hearing from our families just as this film. And I strongly believe that, you know, I'm a voice for our families, I want to share these, you know, obviously, with their permission. And we've been here since 2018. In a we've brought home several of women and girls and getting them out of the life of sex trafficking, and bringing them back home to their families. We're out there in the field searching for loved ones. Unfortunately, we're finding remains. But yet we don't know if this is their loved one until we actually get DNA results back. And then now we're waiting another year for our families to find out if this is really them, then what? You know if it's not has always been my question, what do we do then? And so I truly believe we we have to we have to collaborate for these families, not just in missing person cases, but all violence that's happened in our communities. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Very powerful, very powerful. We have a few questions from the audience. First is question from Angelique who says, this concern Vala, which has been talked about the Violence Against Women Act, reauthorizing VAWA would provide a potential solution to addressing MMI W representative standing questions to me. Will you work with your colleagues in the Senate to see that this bill is signed into law? And so the short answer is, of course, Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized through the House of Representatives. I was a co sponsor, the bill that went through my committee, the Judiciary Committee, and then it went over to the Senate, where I'll put on my political hat where so many, I believe, good bills, things like the John Lewis, voter rights Advancement Act, you saw John Lewis in the in the movie, rest of Seoul. And voting rights and civil rights and gun safety legislation and immigration reform are the things that I'm passionate about. We have passed through the House of Representatives, it goes to the Senate and sits there. Unfortunately, there is some good news on volume. Just a couple days ago, there appears that there has been a bipartisan agreement reached to allow for the advancement of VAWA to be passed through the Senate. I hope and pray that that comes to fruition it would include on the obviously the patent that version that we pass, it didn't include and apparently in the agreement, it does include the issue of allowing greater jurisdiction for tribal courts over non native individuals, which is a huge hurdle on so many of these issues, as was addressed so beautifully in the in the film. So let's pray that that comes to fruition and we get that bill on the President's desk and we can finally get the Violence Against Women Act reauthorized.
the next question I'll take in tandem because they are similar. First is from our friend Debbie mez Nez manual. What are the most effective prevention programs today for safety in Arizona as it relates to missing and murdered indigenous people? That's for anyone on the panel? I'll take the second question. Which probably is the hardest question of all. It comes from memory, memories in the audience here. I have two murdered and one missing female relatives. What kind of resources are available for grieving families? And I guess that question is for valora, in particular, but again, the question about prevention programs and resources for anyone valora will start with you.
Prevention, it really comes from from our homes, it comes from our homes, and that, as parents as families, you know, we need to educate our children about some of the dangers that are out there in the world. And I say this because as indigenous people, we're raising our children by raising them in our homes, but eventually, many of our cases that we've recovered who were over 25 They left home to get an education, you know, and that that is a choice. You know, they want to further their education and obtain careers and throughout throughout their experiences. They're either caught in the life or something else that's going on Many of our tribal programs have victim services, they have coalition's to also provide education and training around these particular issues, utilize those programs awarenesses such as this, you know, wearing red, wearing, you know, sharing quotes from families and survivors. You know, that was the promise I made to families, and they've told me share my story, tell everyone what's going on. Because they're probably experiencing the same thing, but they don't know how to talk about it. You know, so we are out there you see, many of our programs are, are non funded. And and many of our programs have minimal funding. So we need to work on that a little bit better. And because it costs money to make posters, it costs money to travel to get places, you know, um, but that would be my answer to prevention and awareness.
And then the other part of the question was, and this is for anyone on the panel, resources for grieving families. And I know, a lot of you want to take that one on, you and I talked before about the need to provide services for families who have missing loved ones that may not be designated as a crime, but the pain is as equal as it would be for crime because the missing loved one, the more for more resources so that all families can get help, please.
So Shemitah when you're dealing with the grief of a violent act committed against you, we do have if you need local resources here in Phoenix, VA, Laura can connect you to trauma informed culturally relevant counselors, survivors, small groups, like the folks we work at Native Connections, who provide a wraparound service, so that when you go through those waves of grief, and you go through the waves of not knowing when that violence took your two sisters, and now looking for a relative, you may feel isolated. And you may feel that you can't tell their story, because they'll be judged, you'll be victim blamed, you'll be shamed. And that's what we continue to see with our families. And so for Navajo, we've created the missing and murdered dinner relatives, and we do our own fundraising. We're not part of the Navajo Nation. Because a Navajo nation does not provide victim services right now for our families, law enforcement, Navajo law enforcement doesn't, doesn't provide that right now. And so we've been able to do it as the grassroots and working together. So let's connect, stay stay right here and Valoran, I will talk with you after pray with you let you know the resources, because of families come together. And they're getting stronger to participate not only in films like this, but also participating in calling to action to congressional folks their own tribes and want to be part of the solution so that this doesn't happen to another family. And I say for prevention. For every dollar that we invest in prevention. We know it saves another $7 upstream when we talk about violence in what families have to go through. And what I've seen, and when we worked with ash and Mike and how many disclosures that happen is to really tell our children that we love them. And that's what Gary and Mike says ash and Mike every day Tell your child that you love them. And how many of us do that? And then to go back to your child and say, Do you know that I love you unconditionally. And something that I've learned and my daughter who's 11, and kind of on the spectrum who doesn't understand the motion, I tell her show up fill your heart. And when your heart is beating, that's my love. That's my love. And so when we go and talk to our families and our communities, we tell them that because of intergenerational trauma, because of boarding school, because of the trauma we we project on our children, they're trying to navigate all of that. And that's why these groomers who come in and just love bomb them, and just tell them how much they love them and how tell them how much they'll take care of them. And if you love me, baby, you'll do this, because I need you to help us. And so that's how they lure them in. And any period I would say here if we could do a thing for online prevention is there's an app called bark. And I track my kids on bark. I know every move they make on the social media, and bark, lets me know if they try to be sneaky, and add another account. So I know about row books I know about V books. I know about WhatsApp, I know about all these back channels. And you best believe when someone's trying to contact my child, I'm the mom of their, because I bought the phone, I paid for it. And I'm going to be monitoring you. And that's what you have to do for your kids. You have to be the number one advocate. And if your relative is struggling in their own abuse and their own pain, that you have to be strong enough to take care of your niece, your nephew, you have to be strong enough. Just like what grandma did for you, you now or the aunties and the grandmas in the community. To be the one watching them, thank you. And that doesn't cost anything. So I don't need a legislator. I need to say that boarding school took us away from our families, but we are reclaiming all of our babies. It will try to take away our families. We are reclaiming our babies. Thank you.
I was gonna tell you, I too have an 11 year old daughter. And that beating heartline is a good one. Do you mind if I borrow it? To use on my own kids? Thank you. I appreciate that.
And that's the love.
Lieutenant Governor, did you have a comment on that one as well?
Thank you. Um, what I found out on the research that was done by the ASU was that was really surprising to me about the what she's talking about is the State Crime Victims Compensation. And the research that came out were statistics and hold on, hold on to your seats here. The majority and what this is, is whenever there's a victim that needs to apply for compensation for burial, what have you. The majority of the applications from Maricopa County where we're at now was 63%, followed by Coconino. County at 10%. And Paranal County at 9%. The white Caucasian applications that came in for the compensation plan came in at 36%. And that meant that 7% Of all the applications for compensation were Native American. And those were what was that came out of the study that was conducted as soon as they looked at that. But one of the areas that needs to be pursued a little stronger with the the committee here is that through the compensation study and to her question there is that there is a rulemaking process. We call there's an amendment and all this information is on the internet. If you looked up Arizona State Government, you'll find that study on there, all of the work that was produced, you can read that and take it apart and dissect it section by section. But under the AR 10 4108 modify the Arizona Victim Compensation Fund award. They're asking that Native American ceremonies or burials are considered reasonable and customary funeral expenses that this should should be considered and claim for a compensation award. Also to the point of mental health counseling and care that is provided by any individual who is employed or contracted with tribal health care, organization or Indian Health Service to include the Veterans Administration. So all this should be is rulemaking that has been considered to the state in our in our state alone, to get those resources pumped out to victims and victims families. But more importantly, out of that compensation group that is there. There isn't a Native American tribal leadership and out of the 22 tribes here. I would advocate that they at least let every tribe have a speaking voice on that compensation so they can advocate for their respective communities. That would be the ask for our communities. Thank you.
Thank you. It's been a powerful and long night. A lot to take in. A lot of thinking to do a lot of action steps to take rain. Just want to say thank you for again for making such a powerful, beautiful impactful movie. And we could be here all night, continuing this conversation, but I'm going to leave it to you for a few final thoughts before we close out the night.
Well, I want to thank you, Congressman, for essentially hosting us here. And presenting as with a platform, it's an honor to be on this stage with my sisters here. As I said at the beginning, this requires a coalition of conscience. We are that coalition of conscience. You know, the reality is that violence does not discriminate. But our laws do. When it comes to prevention, we cannot compartmentalize prevention from any other aspect of this tragedy. And so, you know, with the greatest of respect for members of Congress who have actually demonstrated that they care about what is happening in Indian country, that they care about this human rights tragedy, because, you know, let's not try and parse it in any other way. This is a human rights tragedy. But we cannot, we cannot continue at the federal level with some incremental approach. To this. This requires a comprehensive legislative approach, we haven't got that. We haven't had that. And I don't see that it's on the horizon in the genome, John Lewis, late great civil rights icon, I had the honor of working with him on the bill that people talk about in their the reduce return and recover act, we need to get a new sponsor for that act, and carry it forward. To continue the legacy of the late great, John Lewis, you know, we can beat around the bush. But we need an all a congressional offering case fix. Everybody in Indian country is still living under the yoke of the Major Crimes Act. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Major Crimes Act came into law in 1885, which would make the 19th century we are now living in the 21st century. And it is more repressive now than it was then. So you can call me crazy. But I happen to believe that if tribes were fully funded, that there was full training, and there was full investment in tribal law enforcement provisions, and the Major Crimes Act was either revoked or reformed, then we would have far greater attention to what happens to tribal people in Indian country, because I know full well, like all of you probably know full well, you've had any encounters with the FBI, that you don't meet many FBI agents who think that it's a crack assignment to be sent to Indian country. And that is reflected in what you see in terms of responses. So like I said, You can call me crazy, but I happen to think that our own people will be more dedicated to solving the crimes if they had the ability to do it, and they were funded. And so we need to build the infrastructure that exists for tribes to do that. And so to me, that's building back better that you provide tribes with the ability and the empowerment to do it and put aside the paternalistic laws that exists today.
I would also add into that, that, and this is something again, Congressman, you know, we look towards you and like I said, I appreciated you. Question in the Attorney General. Another question, you know, for the attorney general is, why is it that US attorneys, when it comes to Indian country cases, they act more like Las Vegas bookies then actually doing their jobs? Because their job is not to play the odds. And guess you know, whether or not well, I don't know that we got an 80% chance of a prosecution with this. So I'm not going to move it forward, which is just going to sit back here. You know, their job is to seek justice. And so we need to hold them accountable, as well. And there is just myriad things that are involved in this. But going back to the coalition of conscience, you know, we need tribal people to come together on this issue. It does not matter whose name is in the newspaper or who gets quoted on social media or who makes the movie owe her anything else, you know, because as soon as somebody does that you get all, you know, the outpouring of lateral violence. You know, we need to leave the MMA cage of social media and actually look upon each other as relatives, as relatives, because that is what we are. And it takes us all to come together. And let's let's not up you skate on this issue is said in the film and nitroglycerin of this issue in many parts of this country, is the extractive industry and the man camps, we need to address the issue of man camps, we need to address the issue of human trafficking tracks, the port cities, that needs to be done legislatively. So I would say that, you know, in my perception, in our original dreams, the sisterhood was at the heart of those original dreams. I talked earlier about our being Maitre lineal societies. There was a period when in each woman was seeing the sanctity of the earth, and in the earth, was seen the sanctity of each woman. Today, every single woman has the sovereign power, and the sovereign right, to engage in this issue, to engage in this issue. And we cannot fall into that place where we think, Well, I'm just one person. What can I do about it? Think about Rosa Parks, they didn't want her to sit on a particular seat in a bus. And what did she do, she went and sat in a seat in the bus, then you look what happened. And so we need to recognize our power as human beings, we need to recognize our common humanity, or we need we need to recognize our compassion for one another, and come together. Because that is the way from a legislative level, to the grassroots level. And you're seeing it, we're seeing it with water sisters here doing many of you, I'm sure who are in the audience tonight who are engaged in your activities. All of these things move toward that coalition of conscience, which is what we require. So what I would say is it takes all of us it's not about changing the world. It is about changing and influencing the parts of the world that you can touch. So let's reach out together. Nia, nice to
thank, thank you so much rain, thank you to our panelists. Thank you, everyone for being here. I am so lucky to represent our community in Congress and you're a congressman from Arizona, you don't just represent your district, you represent all parts of it. And it is an honor to the opportunity then to advocate for Indian country, our tribes that we are so blessed to have in Arizona and working towards justice on this issue of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls is a part of that. And these are our fellow our fellow citizens, our fellow Americans who are missing and we need to do more to support those victims and their families. And we have a lot of work to do. Thank you, everyone. Enjoy the rest of the evening. I think valora and delegate Crotty gonna stick around for people that may want to speak a little bit more about individual issues that they may be facing. I really appreciate that. Have a blessed healthy and safe holiday season and a good new year. Thank you. Good night.
